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Richard Anderson and his best friend, Eugene Whitcomb, joined the Army and Navy together and somehow wound up in the same location after boot camp — Honolulu.

When they got liberty, they'd spend time together at their respective duty stations, and it was Anderson's turn on Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941.

“I couldn't go that particular day because I had duty in the day room. We used to take turns cleaning up the day room, and it was my day,” he explained. “Otherwise, I'd have been on the Arizona when it sank.”

At the head of a long table seating 15 people, with his daughter, Sharon Gregory, at his side, Anderson was one of only five Pearl Harbor veterans at an annual lunch at the Barn Door restaurant — and one of only 14 survivors of the legendary battle still alive in the San Antonio area.

The local chapter of the now-defunct Pearl Harbor Survivors Association has been around for decades — just how long or how big the surviving members can't say, though retired Army Col. Gene Camp, a sergeant in charge of an antiaircraft battery that day, was a member 20 years ago. There may have been 100 members, but that figure is a bit fuzzy.

Organizers Irene Hernandez and Ron Botello, whose father, Raynaldo Botello, died in 2005, started Friday's ceremony with a moment of silence at 11:55 a.m. to mark when the attack began.

“My dad looked forward to this,” said the 66-year-old Botello, a San Antonio financial adviser whose father was on the USS Detroit. “When he would come (it) would be the only time he would talk about the attack on Pearl Harbor, when he was amongst those other gentlemen and ladies that were there with him.”

Johnny Singleton, too, is gone. A mess attendant aboard the USS Maryland at Pearl Harbor, he died Feb. 23. His widow, Rosa Singleton, and stepdaughter, Idella Elam, were among a group of 50 on hand to celebrate the lives of loved ones who survived the battle and World War II.

“He always talked about what happened that day. He was just getting up that morning to fix his breakfast, and that's when the attack happened,” Elam, 55, of San Antonio, recalled.

“Sometimes he woke up and could hear that bomb, the time that bomb went through his ship,” said Singleton, 87, of San Antonio. “He was going to fix some cinnamon toast that morning when the siren went off. But he had to drop that and head for his post.”

He never ate. The Maryland, moored near the USS Arizona, lost four men after being hit by two bombs, according to the Navy. The Arizona was ripped apart by as many as nine torpedoes and sank in the harbor, losing more than 1,100 men.

The damage report came to 19 U.S. ships sunk or damaged, 2,403 Americans killed in action and 1,178 wounded. Japan lost 29 planes, five small subs and 125 men, but missed four aircraft carriers.

“They would come in and bank up and away from the tower, at our level. They did not fire a single shot at us as we stood there in the window watching them,” said St. John, 91, of San Antonio. “It was just our good fortune, I guess.”

Anderson thought back to his luck and a letter to his mother vowing to get revenge for the death of his best friend. A corporal at the time, he got satisfaction by becoming a B-24 bomber pilot, but flew missions over Europe — not Japan as he wanted.

“I always seem to escape by the skin of my teeth. I think it was supposed to be. That's the way I feel about the whole thing. I think a lot of this is ordained way ahead of time. This girl here is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said, looking at his daughter, “and her mother felt the same way.”